More Chapters, Less Updates....

So: One year development time gives us Factions, which feels smaller and less immersive (To many, not all of course) than Prophecies. A new Chapter released every 6 months gives us burnout, and may suffer from the same problems as Factions does.

If this is the case, the solution is obvious: They need to go to 2 years development time per future chapter. One Chapter a year is far less likely to burn people out on purchasing the game, and the quality of the content can be much, much higher.

even a year 1/2 would be great!

I am willing to make a compromise, 9 months.

Imagine if they took 2 years to make a new chapter of the game.

We'd all complain that they took so long. Then all the people who dislike it would complain that they took so long on a crappy game. .-. You cant win really.

Hate to burst you bubble, but... Guild Wars is primarily a PvP game. There will not be three classes per character, hundreds of new skills introduced for no reason, and fixing the economy and trade system is lower on the fix list than it is to balnce existing skills in the PvP realm. So long as pople buy the expansions and PvP for the 100K World Cup tourneys, PvE will be a distant second place for the development cycle.

Speaking of the PVP part of the game, I'm still waiting for the improvements to the beastmastery line, or the inclusion of weapons with a beast mastery requirement.

Also would like to see the elementalist one day live up to its reputation as a 'nuking' class.

Yes, PvP is strong in GW, but your argument has a few problems.

1- You don't need ANY updates more than balance and exploit fixes to have a true PvP game, and New Chapters wouldn't be nessisary for that at all. In that, Anet would make more money by using the Counter-Strike model than by spending craploads of money to pay developers for new content. Have the community make maps for you and pay for game servers for you.

2- PvP and PvE are two very different animals. There are builds that do quite well in PvE, that are useless in PvP, and vice versa (try to IWAY FoW and see how far you get). I am a strong PvE player, but without rank nobody will pick me up on HA. Factions was supposed to be a step towards merging the PvE fanbase and the PvP fanbase. Sadly it does not - in fact it does almost the opposite by creating a need for hard core faction farming to stay in a guild with high faction. Being in a small PvE guild, it is almost impossible to recruit now because most players want to join guilds that are owners in a town.

Maybe I'll go back to CS where all you had to worry about were hackers and mic spammers.

gg Anet

Staggered development or not, it doesn't seem to be enough. If prophecies was released with as many problems (which it was) it would be understandable and forgiveable. However, repeating the same thing the next year (soon to be six months) isn't quite so tolerable.

ANet should change their development model slightly. Have 3 teams, two working on the staggered development, and one more that develops the current chapter. Slowly add content to the existing chapter culminating with the release of the next one. That way you get a real sense of continuity between chapters rather than just jumping into a new game every 6 months + a team that can handle any issues that come up without detracting from the development of forthcoming chapters.

Perhaps you shouldn't have rushed through the game, then

Or perhaps the game should have posed some challenge.

Can ya'll ever reply and not be insulting to someone who does not share your views? Obviously the OP feels as though 1 year of work and releasing a new chapter every six months is not adequate to produce a quality game... lets face it... Factions is crap compared to Prophs and there are plenty of probs with Prophs.

We are talking about quality vs. quantity here... so it's either "cheers, I love your shoddy workmanship and will pay 50 bucks every six months for it" or "A-net, please fulfill your promises and give us something that is going to keep us coming back time after time for a wonderful game." Not “You’re a stupid noob because my opinion is so much better since I assume that I am so much more well informed.” If you have information that you think will be helpful or think that someone else might not know there is no reason why it cannot be respectfully added.

~Andi

I have used IWAY in FoW many times and cleared in under 3 hours. I also cleared UW with IWAY a few times in under 4 hours.

Amazon:
World of Warcraft = $36.99
Guild Wars = $39.95

WoW info from techspot

With the purchase of the game, users will receive a one-month free subscription. After the trial has ended, players will be able to choose from three different subscription plans: a basic monthly fee of $14.99

Guild Wars Faq
Will there be a subscription fee for Guild Wars? Are there any other fees, such as for patches or updates?

There is no a subscription fee of any kind, anywhere in the world and there are no hidden fees. You do not have to pay for the streaming updates that will take place on a regular basis, nor for additional content that we will provide between the chapters of Guild Wars.


case closed

Also, I see devs come to third party forums, and tell people that their idea is a good idea, and sometimes see it enter the game, remember the boss naming contest? Now the emblem contest, Guild Wars is shaped by the people, it may take a little slower because they are not milking 15 bucks a month, but they make do with the way they handle servers (instances). If you guys want to see updates update updates, go play a mmo, if you guys want to see love put into a game instead of just being milked, play guildwars.

Please don't make a comparison between GW and WoW anymore. It is stupid. It makes no sense. GW is more like a "3D Diablo" to me than a true MMO, and I certainly didn't pay money for Diablo 2 on a monthly basis. Whereas for WoW where they actually produce real content in updates... let's just say I'll wait longer before saying the same for GW.

Do you remember how in Diablo you can actually wear armor you pick up from drops, unlike the 'tarded GW system where you are only limited to like 5-6 sets for your 50 bucks? To make the joke even funnier Gaile even has the gall to use "new sets of armor" as marketing fodder for Factions! As if the dumb system wasn't retarded enough already!

Don't forget, updates like ToPK and SF are one time only, for Prophecies ONLY. Don't bank on these to support your argument because they are not valid points.

Thank you.

all I am saying is, is that you get what you pay for.

With games like Wow,eq, and any other mmo you are contently giving them 15 bucks a month, so you will constenly need 15 bucks worth of gameplay. With guildwars you play 50 bucks worth and call it a good day.

It really is up to the individual.

But let's not forget that GW is around 9 bucks a month, and doesn't even offer 1/2 the gameplay that WoW has... PvE wise "game balance" has rendered this aspect pathetic. 20% faster casting or 20% +1 or 20% fast recharge or +30 hp always or +45 hp when enchanted or +60 hp when (negative condition)

At the end of the day Gaile can shout at the top of the lungs in some TV commercial shown on prime time TV, "new greens! new weapons! new armor!" To all that I can simply counter with a simple "so?" You can only have so many combination of mods on your greens and collector items before in Chapter 5-6 you will see things like "The Stonehart 2.0", hey, since they are going to reuse the exact same mods might as well be lazy and just reuse the old name too.

Every post you make does nothing but bash the game. If you really hate it that much, quit. It's really that simple. I can be a fairly negative person, but you take the cake. Good grief, your ability to deride amazes even me.

so anyway... going back to the original post...

okay, first, do you mean 'bugs' or 'updates' ?... if you have a bug issue, report it! nearly every bug I've seen (including ones i never encounterd) are quickly sorted out!.. the fact that there arnt as many bug fixes is a GOOD thing.

These are features that are not chapter specific, they get added to the game and is available to everyone! - I agree, storage and auctions etc, are all things we "would like to have" but as many of the features you add it simply doesnt compensate for 'content' which these expansion provide...

even more in prophecies, but who is to say the extra space in the factions map wont be the new location for the 'expansions'

6 months is not rushed, most MMO's update every 3 months!.. and by the end of those 3 months people are already bored to tears.. the fact that GW can go on for over one year without much in the way of additional content is very unique!...

also, 'updates' dont provide much in the way of income.. if they wait to put these features in the expansions.. I dont mind!... I dont want ANET to go bust, or stop developing GW because they are too busy with 'updates' instead of 'expansions'.

There's still like 57574 bugs still on Tyria/Cantha! It really pisses me off that Anet does a half baked job on these kind of things!

Also another thing concerning Chap. 3 jeez I hope they make a good storyline instead of the same old thing, yes talk to this guy, kill those things..blah blah blah, In Chap. 3 they should have heaps of elements from Tyria like with the Crystal Desert or somthink, personally I think the Canthan storyline was pretty crap and the missions were just meh no better than the prophecies ones.
I wish anet would make somthink that would kinda suck the player in and make him/her think :P

Its called PvP.

I believe people will be more cautious now, with their purchases of future chapters of GW. Rushing the game or not, Factions feels very short. We had only one game to relate Factions, and that was Prophecies, and it's vast gameplay. No doubt people went and bought Factions keeping in mind how great and expansive Prophecies was. It is a formula for let-down. And since this is a one-time fee game, taking the plunge to invest both TIME and MONEY are now considered big risks, after having seen Factions.

I will back you up on your entire post.

And there are members here that do nothing but praise ANET despite the grave gameplay flaws. I look into the game updates thread, and when they see a little bug that has been fixed, they proclaim: "Thank you ANET! My faith has been restored! We are not worthy!" Just go your merry way, which is the manner I have chosen.

- - -

We that dread Factions and its elements need a Savior, and that will come in the form of a rival game. Like agitated ants stuck in a bottle, they stay and complain because there is no similar alternative - no where to go. Once another game similar to original GuildWars rears its head, that is when things get better for all of us, the consumers. People have invested a lot into the game, and to break away so easily is difficult. They will be able to break away easier, if there was something to "fill the void". A rival game will also bring about competition and raise quality of both games.

Perhaps it is happening right now, since their are two teams. People have already vowed to buy only the odd numbered chapters. I know I will follow the same, if CH3 turns out to be anything similar to the quality of Prophecies. When it comes time, there will need to be a few guinea pigs to buy CH3, and let the GW fans know on how it fares. We all know we CANNOT trust online reviews, after having seen the dismal articles popping up about Factions. We cannot trust Gaile and her sales figures.

CH3 is really the final round. Whether ANET can redeem themselves stands here, and what major updates they say they will deliver. If they deliver a game that gives me the same feeling of disappointment as Factions did, all the while selling the game at the $50 price point, then I will know that it is time to move on, and will happily do so.

not everyone likes PvP and the game is advertised in a way that implies you dont need to PvP or PvE if you dont want to..

Overall this game was a lot shorter then prophecies, i spent forever doing things in prophecies when i got it at xmas time and still have yet to complete it (mainly due to farming lol) however in factions when i put my mind to getting towards the end it didnt take long at all and i was surprised how quick i got to leviathon pits, but overall i think factions is good but is kinda like my school reports "A lot of potential but fails to deliver" for example the AB system, seems kinda pointless because you dont really effect anything and you only seem to play on one of 2 maps, maybe if each stage had a 2 or 3 maps possibly, it would be more interesting. The faction system seems broken in some way aswell and the game does seem rushed in some areas. A slightly longer development time or letting the release slip if thats what it takes to create a better game would benifit us all in the long run.

Also im sure at some point it was said there might not be a Halloween event or similar (but i could be mistaken) for factions. The community as a whole seems to have a lot of probs with factions atm, I wasnt around when Prophecies was released so I dont know if this is a repeating trend but with another release only 6 months away the dev team doesnt have a lot of incentive to work on factions anymore PLUS:

Dev 1 works on Ch3 for 6 months -->
Dev 2 Releases Chp 2, starts on Ch. 4 -->
Dev 1 releases Ch 3 6 months later.

So hasnt the 2nd dev team started on Ch. 4 already?? meaning how could they even have time to sort out what we're asking for?? Thats prob the reason the stuff we're asking for (storage, auction houses etc) arent planned til Ch.3. A worrying thought if thats the case at least in my book anyway

You have a better idea? Lots of bitching and whining, no answers.

Hardly. Hero's Ascent is nothing but FOTM builds, and has been that way for a long time. And looking at the last season finals, GvG is now nothing but gimmick builds. GG

Not at all. Guild Wars is for both. Casual players miss nothing by playing at their own pace. They might actually get more from the game than the hardcores that rush through and beat the game in 24 hours or less.

In relation to the length of the game.. my first tyrian character took a long time to finish the game. I had to learn all the controls and all skills. My second character took a lot less time, and towards the release of factions, I was able to get a character from pre searing to thunderhead in a weekend (I'm slow, I know).

Factions took several weeks (and I'm still not finished) with 1 character.. finished all missions but haven't gotten to all places quite yet.

So now we complain about factions not being long enough.. we know the skills we use, how the controls work, and how the henchies work. The new skills aren't that many, and getting used to them is reasonably easy (most of us seem to use 90% of tyrian skills)

I wonder how someone new to the game who's only got factions deals with things... Someone who still needs to learn the controls and how things work.. would they complain about lack of content or lack of challenge like the rest of us do?

Also, did I mis-read or did it say that gw is for the casual player .. someone like me for instance.. who works during the day and looks after a family at night leaving me with.. well.. not a lot of time to actually play.

no one remembers all the patches Prophecy had on release ?

Factions isnt alone with having many bug fixes


yes, the bugs are unfortunate but have no regrets buying Factions and GuildWars: Factions is my current favorite online game

(I find the other online games like EQ/WOW boring at level cap -- raid or quit)

No, I was refering to PvE, not dumb old PvP

I know But thats besides the point...

Generik... didn't you find anything the least bit stupid about killing any enemy on Diablo 2, for some utterly bizarre reason it then drops armour in your size. Which you could then give to your Henchman and it miraculously fit him too? The last time i played Diablo 2, you couldn't make your own armour, you stuck with the shit you found from the game or traded.

Although as you said with the greens... 'Victos Battle Axe' = 'Kanaxais Axe' and 'Dragos Flat Bow' = '(the other elite mission thing) Flat Bow). They're already started repeating themselves, they just have different skins. That seems to be enough for most people. Theres a good chance on Chapter 3 when everyones lost there Victos Axes that suddenly people will pay a fortune for them since no-one farms them anymore. And as the skin is practically rare again since no-one has farmed it for months.

Seems with all the WoW vs Guild Wars crap in this thread this issue was missed by almost all.

If the two teams are busy working on the new content as soon as old content ships, who is here to fix the problems? Look at the elite mission stuff. ANET said we would have alternate ways to access them, but the timeline was months. So basically nearer to Chapter 3's release.

This to me is unacceptable. I will ride out the rest of this chapter, but I am not sure I want to really get chapter 3 now at all. So many things in chapter 2 I hated, and with non of the big game fixes coming in, it makes me wonder how much ANET cares about quality over quantity.

an old Q&A from last summer, before Observer Mode was released

Fansite Friday #46, June 2005
http://www.pixelrage.com/mesmerize/i...11&It emid=67
(goto link to see full interview)

Will expansion packs offer new features and functionality or are expansions limited to fresh content and more options?
In Summary:
========================
Retail Expansions
- offer new content, a new storyline, new regions, new skills, new classes

Free Game Updates
- offer features that improve or expand functionality. Examples of features would be account storage, chat or trade improvements, or such features as Observer Mode.

the response was to the simple fact that he thought a year instead of 6 months was needed ignoring the fact that it has been plastered over every site that each chapter does have his one year of work.

each team is releasing only one chapter a year.

we only got SF as a tide me over to Factions release because of the people who would leave after another 5 months without something new to do.

and yes most of my responses are not insults

Yet we have been waiting a year or so and ANET have said many times they will implant these features into the game. I waited for Factions thinking I may get such updates... but no such thing happened. I also highly doubt they will release these updates in Chapter 3.

I agree the free updates with improved/new features is uncommon and slow

ANET never gave any timeline estimates for *WHEN* new improvements would be made to storage and trade


its been less than a year since Observer Mode was given as a feature

Observer Mode was discussed since Spring 2005 and went live only a few months ago

Guild Wars Interview, August 2005
http://pc.ign.com/articles/645/645612p1.html

I bet we see an auction house added to GW before Christmas 2006

A good point has been brought up, and if (from now on) both development teams are always going to be working on a new chapter, who is going to work with updates when it will be obvious both teams are already probably presssed for time.

So, does this mean that if GW chapters have any problems and possibly major one's in terms of game design, should the community expect several months of delay until the next chapter arrives for important updates. Unfortunately, it seems that with what we have seen, it may be true to expect a long long wait for game updates that may not directly affect the released chapter. If this is the case, can we conclude that Anet delivers a game which will only be fully developed several months after it's release? Should we expect incomplete games and fixes and updates to be in a time frame of several months?

If that is the case, then I don't believe it is worth my time to buy a game and wait for months before it is fully developed. That defeats the purpose of wanting to play at the desired time. Sorry, in my opinion, I feel Anet has made some very poor marketing decisions that turn me off from wanting to really continue with the GW series. I suppose it is what you pay for, but it isn't satisfying for what you expect. Well, here is hoping that Ch. 3 proves me wrong Otherwise, its onto other games..

I've never heard of a game with fewer bugs than GW. GW has 1/100th or less the bugs of WoW, and has since launch.

I'm not crazy about the PvE, but what they have produced is as close to flawless as it gets.

There's been zero days (24 hours consecutively) down time and it's very very rare to have an hour down time. There's only been one night, eastern US that I've ever had trouble logging on.

There are a lot of things I want for GW, but I think that everyone more than gets their money worth from the game. They delivered what they said they'd deliver.

while an Auction house would be very helpful to the game
it does NOT make GW an incomplete game without an AH

Lets face facts here folks: we all like Guild Wars. Whether you like or dislike Factions, whether you are upset about bugs and updates or whether you're doing fine: a healthy majority still enjoy playing the game in one aspect or another on a daily or semi-daily basis.

I am not an ANet fanboi. I don't think everything they do is golden and great, nor do I think they are infallable. They are humans just like us, who work hard to produce a game that tries to make everybody happy ... it is for that reason I give the benefit of the doubt in their favor before I make a final decision.

I do throw my two cents in on these forums when something meets with my displeasure, and also i'm sure to make a post when I see something that I like. That is the entire reason this site exists: to provide information and a place where people with a similar interest (Guild Wars, in this case) can come together and discuss the game and the goings on within.

So please, if all you have to say is negative and you don't bring anything intelligent into the conversation: quit. Just quit. In that same vein, if you only come here to praise ANet and the dev team, without even listening to people's constructive criticism to the contrary: quit.

To the OP: There's been alot of sidetracking in the last 4 pages, so i'll try to bring it back to your original point: I can understand how you might be a little disappointed with factions, I have my own as well. From information we've heard, it wasn't the original Prophecies team that was in charge of its development. It will be pretty safe to say that the team isn't to my liking if chapter 3 is of good quality, and chapter 4 shares flaws with Factions. I wholeheartedly agree that there are some fixes that need to be made (bugs, trade system, etc) that should take a priority with the dev team.

The way I see it: the "core" players (those of us that have been around for a while) are the ones that would be detrimental for ANet to lose ... we have all worked hard for our achievments and are not as likely to just give up the game for something else as the more casual player would be. And as such, we notice the mechanic flaws more than a casual player would, and are more demanding about updates and fixes.

That's all that was on my mind, hope everyone's having a nice day

Less chapters and more content if you ask me there it would of been best to have more missions in prophecies.

Thank you your highness, I am really honoured to receive your complement.

Ninna, actually.. i never actually posted particularly about the auction house. I was posting in general, and there is obviously more additions guildwars can have to improve the game significantly asside from trade.

sorry for the misunderstanding

I don't think GW is incomplete tho (despite the bugs / lack of features)